Naruto Drabbles
by wjames260
Summary: These are a series of Naruto related drabbles that aren't long enough to justify existing as their own files. Some might be long enough, but I like having them all organized together. My favorite is Two Black Crows. I like to explore the inner thoughts of the characters and also their mundane lives.
1. Morning With Naruto!

The water simmers, boils, and the light on the coffee pot blinks. Something clicks, turns off. An exhale, a breath.

Steam rises like a liquid, into his face, hot against his skin, as the water pours from the lip of the pot, into the styrofoam cup. The tiny peas and squares of carrots rise above the noodles, floating.

Covering the opening of the cup with a flat piece of cardboard, Naruto sits at the counter, in his wooden chair, staring through heavy eyelids at the wall. He watches as the light changes, as some cloud parts and the sunlight hits the wall at a sharper slant.

After three minutes, Naruto peels the cardboard off. He breathes in the steam. He smells the sodium, the pork, the broth. He breaks the chopsticks apart.

 _Itadakimasu!_


	2. Katon no Father

His father's face is like a board of plywood. A perpetual frown sagging downwards. Arms crossed like sheathed blades. And sturdy black eyes that are like beacons, like homing devices, and when you make eye contact with him you cannot look away. You can only stare into the dark of his pupils and wonder what he thinks of you.

During the war, his father was known for his terrible eyes and for his mastery of Katon. Whole forests bloomed into a crown of flames when he arrived. Soot speckling the choking air like a snowfall. The murmur of fire, the brooding of fire, it sits in his eyes like coals, like obsidian rock, like -

 **Again.**

Breathing in, Sasuke envisions his lungs expanding like balloons. Clasping his palms together, he runs through the signs - Tiger, Boar, Tortoise - one at a time, giving each sign a due respect, a deliberate shape. During this, he maneuvers his chakra inside his stomach, heating it like a pot of simmering water, sparks crackling from the surface of the chakra. Sweat beads upon his forehead, his palms, his underarms, his upper back. Little pains appear in his gut, like firecrackers going off inside the lining of his organs. His blood pumping quicker, hotter - then, he shouts the incantation -

Goukyaku Katon no Jutsu!

No, too sudden, too harsh, too inarticulate. He stumbled through the phrase, he rushed the words, and the fire sears the inside of his mouth, burning the surface of his tongue, the saliva ducts, and his gums. Like he choked on the flames, like it burst too soon.

On his hands and knees, now, on the scorched brittle brown grass, coughing, hacking spit and small embers of flame. Spitting the fire out into the ground like vomit, like residual saliva. His eyes watering, so dry and bitter. His stomach broiling with unused, clotted chakra. And the tower of his father standing behind him. A shadow cast, a coal in each eye socket. His arms must be crossed, Sasuke thinks. His arms must be crossed.

"I'm sorry," Sasuke mutters, spits, wiping his mouth with his wrist. Waiting for a response, he stares into the ground. Into the tiny embers burning there in the brown grass. Twisting them out with his fist, he coughs and stands back up. His stomach feels bulbous and rotten. His eyes burning with hungry sunlight. But behind him, there is silence.

Looking back, his father is gone. Without even a footstep to indicate where he went.


	3. Uzuki Yugao, True Killer Shinobi

Her katana's blade glows a deep, ember-like red. It crackles like snapping electric wires. It flashes, brightens. When she reaches it towards the throats, the torsos, the genitals. Flames and lightning leap out to close to gap. Then, incineration. Smoking vivisection. Burnt edges of eviceration and -

Smell of burnt flesh, smell of smoke, fires, soot and scorched earth. A flash of red. A flash of bright orange. Heat, wind. Metal. Mellifluous, almost, somehow. Within movement. Within strikes of lightning. Within the mirages created by the heat of her blade. Flood, black water. Ripples in the air. A slumbering mind.

The blood does not stain her blade or armor. It evaporates into red mist like vapor, obscuring the battleground. Her enemies begin to smell like the blood, the vapor as it sticks to their skin like a fine mist. They are tracked, they are marked. Even when they escape, she hunts them down.

Her expressionless white mask, painted to look like a hound. Her curtain of violet hair. Her gray-metal armguards, shinguards, torso, the black leotard beneath it, the exposed left shoulder baring her insignia - two lines curving in towards one another, creating a infinity symbol, in deep red - and the fingerless gloves she wears. The bloodhounds that appear in a cloud of sudden dust and smoke. As if created by the palm of her hand and the streak of her own blood she painted onto the dirt. They appear and dart off, already knowing what to do, their black rubber noses low to the ground as they scatter into the woods, searching.

She waits, breathes, looks into the sky. The glow of her blade dims. Like a metal ember, brooding. Then, just steam from the metallic blade, too hot still to touch, she stabs it into the dirt of the road and waits.


	4. Forest Running

Nimble, leap. Land, a crunch of dried leaves. Soles of her feet, above blue-rubber sandals, above the pine-needled floor of the forest. Smell of pine, smell of gunpowder, smell of fox droppings.

Crown of trees, like their trunks are towers, like the forest is an abandoned city.

How many meters, the radio buzzes in his ear. The volume's too high. An adept shinobi could hear it, a Hidden Sound Jonin, or any of those ANBU Hunter-nin of the Mist.

A twist of the dial, a hum of the tiny speaker.

"Twenty, twenty-three."

Roger.

Roger.

Roger.

He's made three mistakes so far.

1) When he landed, she landed on dried leaves. His enemy, knowing he is an ANBU, would never believe he'd land like that. Not only does that alert them enemy to the possibility of ambush, the leaves also act as good combustion for a potential fire-based attack. He is vulnerable. Vulnerability is not a bad thing, necessarily, if it is controlled. This time, it's not. An opening, a pinhole - it's not audacious, it's just weak.

2) When he landed, something broke in his satchel. Gunpowder leaked into the lining of the bag. He can smell it. If he can smell it, then anyone can smell it. Inuzuka can smell it. The Copy Ninja could smell it. This is not a problem if his enemy cannot ascertain _why_ he carries gunpowder. Surely not for the explosions…

3) The -

A kunai, a whip of air. Dodge, dodge, 180 degree turn. Metal sparking against metal. Wind, zipping. Chakra broiling, brooding, coming to fruition. A leap, a dash, a cracked cervical bone. A drop of quiet as the body falls, snapping against a branch, leaves tousled into the air like confetti, and then a _plomp_ as it hits the ground, the pine needles, the helicopter seeds twirling as they fall.

He stands on a branch above the scene of death. Observing, waiting. Will they retrieve his body so soon?

No. No, of course not. They want him to move, first. They have the advantage, still concealed, while he is out in the open.

Report.

"One dead. Chunin. It's not him. He's not here."

Roger. Do it.

Roger. Roger. Now is not the time for that. No, now is not the time for that.

Now - now is the time to leave. To go home. To kill everything and go home.

In the bushes, in all the shadowy bushes of the grove, the alcove, he senses them tense, rustle, leap as his hands weave the signs. Like threading, like knitting, his fingers are lucid and cannot be interrupted as they grope and change and create and the chakra surges, inhales, exhales, and they leap from their shadows, the air full of bodies, then - blinding light, howling flames, searing heat, as the pine needles of the forest snap and crackle into soot, and the bark curls, peeling away from the inner wood, and the inner wood sizzles and combusts - then the world, the forest, is shiny and black, smelling of gunpowder, of ash, of smoke and the burnt flesh of enemy Shinobi. She stands amidst the falling soot, like snow, and feels the heat brooding all around him, and the bodies are blackened already, their limbs contorted, their mouths agape, their cheeks burnt away revealing just the teeth and the bone beneath gums.

Through the smoke and the blaze he flees, while the forest burns. Leaping form branch to branch, from knot to knot, the heat and the smoke behind him, becoming smaller, then nothing, and she doesn't smell it anymore - only his clothing smells like soot - and there is the elbow of the river. His companion waiting at it's vex. The water moving like a diluted mirror. Wind tricking off it's surface.

She lands in front of his comrade.

"Well done. Do something about your smell, then we'll go," the man says. The mask painted like a wolf. The gray arm-guards. The beige cloak with the hood.

She can tell it's a doppleganger. A clone of himself. He'd never approach with his real body.

"Roger," she says, almost a whisper, weaving the hand signs - a burst of chakra, swirling around her like a cloud, seeping into the fabric of her clothing - and then she is odorless.

"Let's go," he commands. And they disappear, leaving behind not even footprints, just a cloud of dust that settles a moment or two later, concealing where they'd just been standing. Then, the river is quiet. Then, the river is calm.


	5. Boruto Waits For Something He Can't Have

1\. The tracks rumble overhead, like some clanging metal beast, all horns and whistles, coal-smoke and flying sparks. There is a kind of violence to the movement, to the ungraceful speed. Like something awful just happened down the road. Like something better lies in the other direction, if just safety.

Boruto sits under the awning, in the shade, watching. From this distance, the train move more like a comet in the sky, with an almost austere silence, with unimpeded movement.

Taking a sip from his mocha, he stands up and stretches his back.

2\. Sometimes, I imagine myself hanging out with people I used to hang out with. But this time, I am as old as I am now and they are as young as they were then. And I am quietly more mature around them, picking up their messes, making little observations about their social intentions. Slowly, like something unfurling, they realize how much of an adult I compared to them, and so they respect me.

Boruto is only twelve, but he already feels this way. Muttering to himself in his bedroom, trying not to give in to his adolescent hormones.

3\. DIDIDIDI

That's the sound of his video game, as he mashes the buttons, as the lights and colors flicker on the screen, and his face is illuminated with a faint haze. Something happens, something passes, and Hinata calls him to dinner.

4\. A spit of oil, the scent of gas. A crooked burnt match lying on the table's surface. The crack of an egg, the spill of yellow yolk. Sputter, flame. In the morning, sunlight looks so wet, so dewy, as it hangs In the window-pane, and falls upon the sill like a drowsy, napping thing.

Boruto and Himawari, with sleep sewing their eyes closed, waiting patiently in their wooden chairs while their mother stands, back turned, at the stove-top, her hair tied in a tiny bun, her elbows moving in rhythm with the spatula.

Father is already gone to work, again - Boruto wants to intone this, to make it known that his thumping feet will not be heard on the stairs this morning, that there will be no crinkle of the newspaper or snapping lid of the pill bottle or nauseous scent of black coffee. That this morning, there will be a capsule of femininity in the household, and that is where Boruto feels most at ease. Despite his outwards hatred, despite his arrogance towards his father, Boruto prefers it when it's just the three of them: Mother, sister and himself, because there, in that forgiving realm, he finds the restlessness calmed, and without need to prove himself, and just a small drop of freedom - he feels okay asking for runny yolks when its just mom - he feels okay talking about his studies when its just mom in the room - and, yet, this gnawing thing inside him, this ditch being dug inside his chest, it compels him to speak aloud about their father's priorities - or, it would if he weren't so tired, still. Maybe later, in the afternoon, where things are always a little more somber, maybe there he'll say something mean about dad.


	6. Curse of the Serpent

Searing pain in the nape of her neck, flash of white light. Like something biting her, sinking it's burning fangs into the cartilage of her esophagus. She falls to the floorboards of her apartment, knocked back, onto her knees, by the pain, like a solid block of pain in her neck. Grabbing the spot, like she is choking herself, she applies pressurized chakra. Gritting her teeth, she refuses to let out a single noise. She refuses to lose the silence of being a Shinobi. If he takes that from her, he wins. That's why, part of why, she failed the ANBU exams. And that's why they won't promote her to elite Jonin, and why they won't let her lead a team of Genin, and why they try to keep her in the village at all times. It's why the Foundation is always following her, and why - _Uagh!_

A noise comes out, from the back of her throat. By accident. Just a small, grunting noise. A pained noise. He won. He took it from her. Then, the pain stops. Everything is calm, easy. An endorphin release, actual joy. As she lies there on her back, on the floorboards, the knots of wood pressing into her spine, staring up at the rafters, the dust hanging in beams from the windows. All this quiet, the quiet of her small apartment. What did he want? To dominate her? To prove to her he could do this? Force her to the floor, force a noise from her throat, force her to give up again? Then, release, forgiveness. He is cruel, he is criminal. Salacious in his sadism.

Pushing herself off the floor, the mark on her neck pulsating, tingling, tickling, she stands shakily up. Straightens herself out, her mesh-tank, her flexing muscles, the tool of her body, like a mechanical thing, she is, like a piece of metal, forged, beaten into shape, into utility. This is what it means to be Shinobi. To be one who endures. To be cursed like this, by the pale snake, by villainy. She swears at him. A loud, full cuss. In the dark of her mind, she hears his silvery laughter.

Then, the kitchenette. Pot of water, flicker of the stove-top. Tea-ball, jasmine. She opens the fridge, searches. All that emptiness, the empty shelves. A sheeve of wilted lettuce, a half-bottle of mayonnaise. _Fine, fine_. She'll go out. Later, she'll go out. After tea. She opens a drawer, a cabinet, pulls a bottle of calcified honey, unscrews the cap, smells it.

The mark still sizzles, like embers, like something murmuring. _What is he doing?_ Ibiki, he thought they could use the mark against him. That, maybe, they could spy on him through her. For weeks the Intel Squad roamed around her mind. They had her strapped to a - like an MRI machine, she was inside of. Just her head poking out. She was like that for weeks. Sweating, stinking inside the machine. They fed her with spoons. They let her relieve herself into a basin, inside the machine. They had it built into the damn thing. And they probed her mind. They scoured every bit of memory, every lost aspiration, every tender moment. There were no secrets, then. After that. She was opened, she was flayed. Like a mental vivisection. Then - then they _published_ their findings. Leaving out only state secrets. The entire ANBU read the dossier, the entire Jonin Council, and the Hokage. They all read it. They all know the deepest parts of her. _Fuck you, Ibiki, Inoichi. Fuck you both._ It all came to nothing. The curse mark, it's a one-way window. He can see her, she can't see him. The perfect jutsu.

The water boils, she turns off the stove, pours the steaming water into a coffee mug, drops the tea-ball inside, watches it bob and sink, watches the water turn cloudy brown, the tiny flecks of tea-leaves escaping the sieve of the ball, whirling around inside the mug. Her stomach tightens, grumbles. _Shuttup_ , she says. Then, it burns again. It flickers, she feels a small arc of chakra. His chakra, inside of her. Always inside of her. Such dark, malicious chakra. No. Not dark. White. Pale. Diseased. He is sick, in the mind, yes, but also in his body? Something is happening to him. Something good is happening. He won something? He gained something. No. No she cannot know. It's all in her head. Of course she can know. It's her right to know. No, not her right. Her privilege. The men always pretend the women don't know them, can't know them in the warrior way - but she knows him, she knows him well, she knows his blood, his anger, his tenderness, and his code of honor, a sick snake honor but honor nonetheless. She knows him like the men know each-other. Like comrades, like - The curse mark settles, fluctuates. This curse of his. This black seal on her neck, like a tattoo, like an knot. This burning, ceaseless thing. His eyes staring at her, always. Watching, observing. They say, the Third says, it reacts to his emotions, to his chakra, to his torment. She agrees with that assessment. He is giddy. He is pleased. It's almost sexual, what he's feeling. He's laughing, his cackling silver laugh. His long pale white hands. The purple marks around his eyes. The way he moves his body, like he is a rubber skeleton. God, it hurts. Not the curse mark, her gut. Clenching, pressure, metallic. Like she's been stabbed. Hunger, gnawing. Another symptom. The curse mark, it sucks her dry, it takes her energy, it feeds off her like a parasite. Her metabolism is the most wild in the whole village. The doctors told her she has to eat like the pregnant women do, always, forever, until she dies or until they find a cure. The curse takes her calories, absorbs her chakra fat. She has to eat, or she'll die, she'll wither, she'll get dizzy and fall down. It's another reason they don't like sending her on missions. She can't take food pills, the curse absorbs it all. They'd have to send a cook with her, on long missions. No - they keep her nearby, in the forests surrounding the village, in the Fire Country itself, close to the center. _Fuck them. Fuck the Hokage_ \- no. No. Guilt, shame, falls through her like drapery. It was him, she's sure. Saying that, it was him, it must have been him that thought that thought.

She sips the tea. It burns. It feels good that it burns. Her lips, scalded. Her tongue, steaming. Her throat, on fire. It feels good. The inside of her mouth, seared, peeling away. All those gums, all that soft pink flesh - destroy it with boiling water. Why not. Why not. It feels good. The pain feels good. The curse mark, it simpers. She can feel it, like a tiny smile in her neck, like a smirking thing. She slaps herself, on the neck. It hurts, it feels good that it hurts. Dango. Please. She begs for it. She sets the tea on the counter, whisks her coat on, and leaves her apartment through the window. Then, the open air. Rooftops, ledges. Wind, specks of dust. Alleyways below her. Streets, people. Pedestrians, glancing up at her. She is a ninja, a blur, a dash of lines. In a few minutes, she's there, at the sweets shop. The swinging front door, the bell dinging, the counter with it's glass top. _Hello_ , the girl says, the girl who's always behind the counter, with her little white cap, her big white sleeves. _Dango, again?_ Anko nods, smiles, laughs behind her smile, behind her little fang, whipping her bangs out of her face - _Yes, dango again, please, yes_.


	7. Haku Sleeps While Zabuza Watches

His fingers are cold, soft, and a little wet. Like snow, like a touch of snow.

"Haku," he murmurs, with a tenderness he could only expose when the boy is asleep. Zabuza caresses his long black hair, thick and fibrous but soft like silk. His face is pointed, becoming angular, with big brown eyes, long shiny lashes, the palest complexion, pinkish lips. He is likes a snow rabbit, so small and fragile, so nimble, so witty. But, there is an audacity to him, too. A bodily strength, a likable temperament that furrows, that crushes. Just enough sadism, the perfect amount of sadism. Their enemies cower in fear of this little boy, this - his body is small, growing. Adolescence, steaming, arriving, from some distant hormonal shore. Soon, he will become interested in sex, alcohol, and the other sins of life. His nindo is still forming, still - but he only has eyes for Zabuza. Zabuza is his master, his savior, his - and so Zabuza wonders: _When will he realize what I really am? When will he realize that I am just a washed out traitor? A merc. A thief. A broken tool._

"I'm sorry, Haku."

He dresses the boy in kimonos - or is it the boy who dresses himself? He gives the boy a mask to wear, his old hunter-nin mask, from the days of glory in the bloody mist, the failed coup, the life on the run. Unlike the Akatsuki, Zabuza never scratched out the Kiri symbol from his forehead protector. Instead, he just wears it off-kilter, like they say the Copy Ninja does. It was a long, cold, bloody history. The Fourth, the coup, Juzo, Kisame, that Uchiha boy… It burns in him, like something sour, like pulp in his gut, in his throat, wanting to becomes words, tales, truths. But, the boy is asleep.

"I was born into the Bloody Mist, Haku. A world you were too young to know about," he starts, then stops, chokes on the words. It's too long ago, to talk about it now. Useless, both him and his past. The Bloody Mist was a simple place. Death or life. Strength or death. The weak died, the strong became tools. The very strongest, the Seven Swordsmen, became heroes. That's how it was. Simple. When the times changed, things became confusing. He fought for something he didn't understand. He tried to kill him, so foolishly he tried. His beheader's blade snapped on the Fourth's coral. Like a twig, like - and so he had to flee, he had to run, he had to become invisible, hiding in the mist, silent stepping, killing for food and money. It wasn't long ago, when the news arrived, that the coup was over. That Mei Terumi, once the most hated ninja of the Mist, had accomplished what nobody could - the old regime, started by the Third, continued by the Fourth, was toppled. Yagura was dead. At the cost of a Bijuu, and countless missing-nin. Zabuza could not go back, then. He became one of the lost. An old hero, still celebrated, still respected, but he had nothing to go back to. The Mist wasn't the same. He didn't want it to be the same. But it wasn't the same. If he returned, he would collapse, implode, fall away into depravity. So, he found a child, in the snow. Haku. One of the lost souls who the new regime never - well, the timeline is messy. Nothing is known. That's the nature of shinobi, of the secret-keepers, of death dealing. It's useless, all so useless. This world, it's made of relationships, work, and the dying of things. Maybe. Something like that. Zabuza is lost, still. Confused, betrayed by himself and others. That man, that short snobbish man - Gato. With his mustache, his wiry hair, his sunglasses. He will die a bloody death. Nobody will care. That is fine. He will die like Shinobi die, on the battlefield. Like Zabuza will die.

But, the boy. He murmurs in his sleep. Unintelligible, without language. Just a noise, a sleeping noise, almost like a snore - but Zabuza will punish him for it, later. Good Shinobi don't make noises. The ones who survive are always alert, even within sleep. So young, he is, Haku. So small, so - but he is not so fragile, not so weak. His jutsu is strong, cannot be defeated by normal ninja. But - maybe it is his nindo that is weak. A nindo unto Zabuza. A life dedicated to a broken tool. This is like Genjutsu, Zabuza thinks, what he does to Haku, what he's made Haku believe about him.

"I'm sorry, Haku. I just needed, I just needed one person to believe in me. To see me as the man I wanted to be. No - I didn't know what I wanted, back then. When I was a kid, a killer kid, I didn't want anything, back then. I just wanted to be good, maybe. And that meant killing. Anyone they told me to kill. I peaked too early, I think. I - I'm sorry, Haku. But you'll know about me, one day. You'll become powerful, stronger than me, and I'll die, maybe by your hand, and you'll go back there, to the Mist, which, now, under the Fifth, might accept you and your abilities. I'm sorry. I keep you from that, from - But they'll use you, too. You'll see. There is no such thing as peace for us, for Shinobi. No such thing as dreams or aspirations or ambitions. Only the day-to-day, killing, survival, then death. In the end, we all fail. So, we call failures successes. We call dying on the battlefield - we call that honorable. I don't know. I have no honor, anymore, Haku. Honor means having, it means having someone to give your honor to, right? To die honorably means you died for someone. But, I have - I don't have that, anymore. I just have these blood-ridden hands of mine, this blade that eats the blood of my enemies, and this brain which pulses with hot boiling blood, too. I'm sorry, Haku. But I cannot die with honor. I cannot give you anything. Except, maybe, my sword. One day. You can have it, one day. If you can lift it, that is-"

And he laughs. Zabuza laughs a sad, dry, sandpaper laugh. His chiseled teeth showing, his bandages coming loose.


	8. Hiashi, Every Morning

The koi swim in the pond, in circles, like a custom, like they are cultural things. The water is lymph and silver, almost unmoving. Sunlight skates across the surface, like a caress of light. The morning is dewy, bright. The air is pleasantly cold, wet.

Standing on the little red bridge, he watches the way the fish swim. The way they sleek through the water without disturbing it, like spirits. In circles, they swim. Around one another, the two of them, while a third lurks near the bottom, with the dark-green weeds, like thick braids of hair, reaching upwards.

With his special, moon-like eyes he can see the insides of them. Their small chakra networks, like a webbing of blue fire, constricting, flexing, fluctuating, maneuvering as the muscles of the fish contract, expand, as their gills open, close, as their pearl-black eyes stare out, into the water, into the clear blue water, like watchers, like seers. Koi.

Arms in his sleeves, hands hidden, fingers clasped together. The muscle of his body, the weapon of his body, resting, at ease. His last battle was two weeks ago, in a field near the country's border. He had been traveling with a diplomat, an elderly man who wore a black, caterpillar mustache and an equally black beret. Their convoy, their carriage, was attacked by ninja of the Rain. Shinobi with steel gray eyes, with lithe muscular movements, trained by war, by civil war, by -

But Hiashi was faster, quicker, more nimble. Despite his age, despite the gray flecks in his long dark hair. He kept his expression solid, like a chiseled thing, like a face made of stone, while his torso stayed centered, at a ninety degree angle, with his knees bent, his feet sliding across the soil in concentric arcs, while his arms moved like windmills, his palms facing the enemy, like a sign of peace, but as he cocked his wrist, his elbow, and shot - gales of wind burst from his palms, slamming into the Rain-nin, snapping their necks, tossing them backwards, rag-dolling into the air, in smooth upwards arcs, and as they hit the ground, their bodies unmoving, their limbs tossed in odd angles, the dust settled, the violence simmered, but there was no blood. Only bruising, only ruptured organs, foam-ridden mouths, blank white eyes. As always, he left one alive, the youngest. A small, Genin boy. A kid with long black eyelashes and early teenage stubble. _Hyuuga are the strongest clan in the Leaf_ , Hiashi intoned, a sureness in his voice, a wooden self-respect. The child fled, as they all do. Into the forest, down into the canyon, carrying with him news of their squad's bloodless defeat. Hiashi watched him, watched the boy leaping branch to branch, free-falling into the depth of the canyon, racing down the middle of the valley, crossing the border into the rainy place, where the rain falls always like a sheet, like a veil, like drapery. Then, the boy was gone, disappeared back into the safety of his own nation. The diplomat, the mustached beret man, laughed and laughed, in relief, that shaky afraid laughter. That night, at their destination, he and Hiashi shared cups of green tea, and sat together in that silence of men.

But, the koi. It means love. Koi. To name a fish after love. Or to name love after a fish. To entwine them, make them one. And those legends, about the moon, the koi, the sea, the Hyuuga and their special white pupiless eyes. It's all one thing, one myth, tied together like a chakra network, like a mesh of stories. When his wife died, he named the daughter after her. Hana became Hanabi. Little Hana. Little flower. His favorite daughter. The one who would never leave his side. Who would inherit his martial art, his worldview, his position in the clan. That night, the night Hana died, he purchased a Koi from a fish-monger, on the way home, in fact, from the hospital. The hospital. Despite all their achievements. All their machines and jutsus and big thick books, all their stethoscopes, their white uniforms, their clipboards and rooms assignments and gloves - despite all that -

But it hurts, sometimes. In a soft faraway place. In the inside of him, too. In that deepest place. That place in you, that is so deep, so deep inside your heart that the things you feel there - pain - feel distant almost. So internal it becomes removed. And so you live through life, you live life like water falling through a sieve. It happens around you, life, the living thing, this thing we all have for some reason, this wild fragile thing, this thing made of bloodlines and relationships and the absence of death. We live this way, in this glass-like way, in this - and then they die, then they - our daughters, Hana - they become shinobi, they become soldiers, they becomes a blur of fangs and claws - and in this noisy, angry world they tear and they slash and they learn how to kill. They must. They have to. We are animals, Hiashi knows this well. We are brutal, violent creatures. Despite the Hyuuga, despite their bloodless fighting style, despite their silences, their austerity, their wealth and codes of honor, despite all that Hiashi knows - we are vicious slaughtering animals. Shinobi are merely good at it, at the violence. Shinobi are merely trained, specializing in the violence.

Yet, we named a fish after love, or love after a fish. And we have daughters who hate us, who fear us, who do not understand that silence comes from pain, that battle comes from fear, that - and what will she lose, his eldest? Without him, now. He gave her up, to that woman with the red-black eyes. What will she lose, there, on the battlefields, with the commoners, with the ordinary ninja? Will she die, too? Well, she was never his, anyway. Hana named her that. Hinata. Hana named her that. Yes, that's right. He doesn't owe her anything, except strength, except inheritance. He hates her, sometimes. Is it awful to hate your own, weak child? Only sometimes, in random moments, in seemingly random moments, does he feel that burning hate feeling towards her, towards his precious special daughter. It's a thing of fear, he knows that. Anger comes from fear. Fear is unhealthy in large doses. Like medicine, fear becomes anger only if you overdose. Is it wrong, though, to hate her like that? Maybe, yes. It must be wrong, it has to be wrong. Yet, there it is. Hatred, love. Mixing, combining, becoming a -

But that child used to love rhubarb, he recalls, in a sudden moment. She used to pull it from the garden, and chew the raw rhubarb, and her face would scrunch up at the sour, and she would laugh and laugh. That's when the love hits him, like a weight, like a painful thing, like violence. Slamming him, shaking him, he almost falls. He catches his breath, he stares hard into the surface of the pond. To be immutable, to be one thing, one solid person, infallible within his stolid mind - yes, that would be nice. But, she liked rhubarb, back then. Not anymore. She only likes sweet things, now. She used to like rhubarb. She used to chew it, from the garden. Maybe Ko remembers, too. Maybe Tokuma remembers. Father doesn't. Father is blind, senile. Hinata, all wit and blue fire, as a child. Before the bullying started, probably. Before she inherited her small cruelty. Before Hizashi died. The kidnapping, the cursed seal, the sacrifice. He recalls lying on the floor, in the main room, his right cheek stinging from his brother's fist. Their father standing, watching. The Hokage, too, smoking from his pipe. The others, the branch family heads, watching him with derision and pride. Yes, the shame he felt then. Yes. Give it to me, shame. Please. Tell me what I should do, shame. Let me wallow. Let me float in your water. The joy of shame, it is real. Oh, Father, Hana, Hizashi - what is happening, now? The world is changing, contorting. So are our children. They are rabbits in a storm, in a landslide, trying to stay afoot. Oh God, but we name fish after love, we name fish after love, we name - and we named our daughters, we named them, these children we made, we so audaciously tenaciously naively named them, and now -

Trembling, he opens his eyes. The sunlight is hard and white. A bell rings, somewhere. Breakfast, yes. That's right. That's right. He breathes, he exhales, he leaves the garden, walks with purpose towards the washroom.


	9. The Dichotomy of Haruno Sakura

It feels good to be angry. To be rude. To spite and disdain and pick people apart. To _crush_. To reach inside someone and turn their dial down to the lowest setting. It's an empty, cigarette-like joy she receives from this, from hurting people. All the collected, internal pain - released, turned into violence. There is something liberating about violence. About that crunch of bone as her fist, her knuckles, dive inside her enemies skulls, sinking through the brain matter like putty, coming out the other side or her fist just settling into the crater that was their head. Everyone is fragile, to her. Everyone is made of glass, rotted wood, melting butter. She stands, towering, above them, snarling, smirking, shouting her famous war-cry, pummeling the palm of her left hand with the rock of her right fist. Her black, fingerless gloves. Her pink-red bandanna, zip-up coat, her dark-grey spandex shorts, and her navy blue shinobi sandals. They, her enemies, see a flower petal, all the pink, the bright green eyes, the small thin body. They see a healer, a doctor, someone weak and ineffectual on the battlefield. But then, then she lunges back, she cocks her elbow, she shoots - and the ground splits like a crushed windshield, the forest becomes a maelstrom of smashed trunks and shrapnel-branches, the skeletons of her targets are exposed, bloody and white, crumpled, turned into ground dust. The normal shinobi, they are like mannequins to her, like ice sculptures, like papier-mâché.

They are weak, yes.

So, why does it feel so good? To crush, to pick them apart?

It's a - it's the joy of her own personal slum, the joy of depravity and listlessness, the joy of depression and self-loathing and hate. Something spiky and excusable. Allowable, permissive. To dominate is to feel alive. To destroy is to empower. Violence is liberation. Healing is the opposite. That is her, isn't it? Two opposite halves, coming together, happening simultaneously. Destruction and the putting of things back together. Opening wounds, then closing them. The snapping of twig-like bones, then the building of hospitals. One part is a cackling, mad thing, a liberating wild thing. The other part is a studious, compassionate thing, a thing of warmth, friendliness, and care. How does she swim between these dualities? How does she structure herself within this dichotomy?

But, oh, they are weak. The others. The normal people. The people who cannot blow fire from their lips, who cannot change into one hundred of themselves, who cannot manipulate and trap. Those who cannot bend shadows to their will or see inside the minds of others or become a giant of oneself. The others, the normal ones, they are too weak. Yet, she and the healers are the only ones who can save them. This is the paradox. How do you disdain, disrespect, a person while also keeping them alive and well and healthy? Isn't it easier to let the scalpel fall into their throats? Or to prescribe them too high of doses, or too strong of pills, or - and what about the worst people, the rapists, the murderers, the genocides experts? How does she reconcile it when _those_ people are lying, naked and split open, on her operating table? Do they become just bodies to her? Just procedures, measurements? But then, then in that removed place, in that formal medical distance, where does compassion go? Isn't healing an act of care, a thing made of emotion and decision and the desire to help and protect?

Yet, it feels good, too. It feels good to be rude, to be disdainful, to be spiteful. It feels good to hurt and to break things. Does it feel good to close wounds? To soothe scars? To extract poison from bloodstreams? It must, it has to. A different kind of joy. Something more whole, more fulfilling, more tear-like. The women and the men, Sakura knows, none of them know what they are doing. They cannot, they should not. They can only keep acting, keep working, keep striving, towards the paladin future, and then one day, perhaps, maybe, our great-grandchildren might get there, to that perfect place, where the bad things don't feel good anymore and the good things are mundane within their normalcy. Yes, maybe that will be okay. Okay, she breathes, okay, and she slips on the white plastic gloves, the cream-colored mask, like a shinobi of sterility, and gets to work, with her scalpels, her needles, her threads, and her glowing warm palms.


	10. The Funeral of Hatake Sakumo

The funeral is small and black. A light rain falls, in a drizzle, like a gray veil. His photo is framed, beset by black ribbons, sitting atop the offering table in the front, on the little stage. In the photo, Sakumo is smiling. It's a half-smile, a polite smile. A rare dimmed light in his eyes, which are almost perfect circles. And his spike of gray hair, the edge of his mask reaching pas this chin. Stony-faced, almost. Amused. Sardonic, the way he watches his mourners. But there are so few.

His son, now an orphan, only nine years old, stands so short and stiff in the front line. A mask covering his mouth and nose. His eyes lifeless, empty. He looks almost annoyed. Next to him, a small wrinkled pug with coarse brown fur. It wears a forehead protector, the symbol of hidden leaf etched into the metal. Its eyes are big and watery, sad but unashamed, and something like certainty, too, a kind of conviction for the future. A boy and his dog, two orphans, the two sons of Hatake Sakumo, remain.

There are others, too, at the funeral.

A man with deep, sharp scars in his face. A spiky bushel of jet black hair. His arms crossed, his frown prominent. Sharp black eyes that brood with intelligence. Next to him, another man. This one has a mane of sandy blonde hair. Clear blue eyes, a blockish chin. Their third, the other one, the one with red hair, could not come to the funeral.

The rest of the crowd is composed of people Sakumo knew in his personal life. People outside of the shinobi system. His barber, who, when they first met, broke a pair of rusty sheers on Sakumo's wiry, tough hair, and since then went out for drinks as often as possible. His landlord, a pitbull of a man, with a sweaty mustache, and the landlord's wife, a former debutante. A shopkeeper, who once caught Sakumo's son attempting to shoplift. And, two older women, former lovers, possibly, who knew him in the days of the Second War.

No teammates. No comrades. No senseis or pupils or captains or subordinates. The only active Shinobi present are the soon-to-be Jonin Commander, the owner of a local flower shop, and Sakumo's son, a Chunin already.

The Hokage is not here. It would have been bad politics. Considering how he died, and his failed previous mission, the elders decided it would be best if the higher ups did not attend. Not to create a scene, they said. But, instead. Instead of the Third, there is someone nobody recognizes. A young man with a wispy dark goatee, a red armband, dark lines around his eyes. He stands in the back, stolid, unafraid, but keeping a respectful distance. Nobody seems to notice him. When the prayers are spoken, he speaks them too. And when it's time for eulogies, he departs after burning a single incense on the offering plate.

Who else is here? Someone is going to give a speech. A speech for the White Fang, the fallen hero of Konoha. The crowd, a small crowd, stands quietly in the sleet, shifting stances, someone coughing openly, nobody weeping, a stiff and rigid quiet to it all. His son does not seem to notice anything. Just staring forward, into the air. Nobody wants to speak.

Then, a light turns on somewhere. A young confident man steps in front of everyone. He wears the Konoha flak jacket, along with the traditional black funeral garb. His hair is a shock of bright blonde, almost like it was bleached. His eyes a sharp and blue. His skin pale, unblemished. He is smiling, almost. A small sad smile. He stands in front of everyone, the murmuring whispering crowd - and when he speaks his voice is soft but loud.

"Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang, former Chief of the ANBU, once celebrated Elite Jonin of Konoha, hero of the Second War, and - in the past - a Hokage candidate. He was many things. He was a true killer shinobi. A hunter, a predator. The names of his enemies, his targets, reach far and wide. The famous Red Scorpions of the Sand. The Iron Lady of Iwa. The Third Mizukage himself. These were enemies, shinobi, our White Fang battled and defeated. Earning for himself a name that would be hunted, feared, and respected. His ruthlessness on the battlefield was well know, renowned, and has inspired countless young Leaf ninja, such as myself. However, it should be noted that despite his expertise, despite his great power, his most important traits resided in his compassion. Compassion for his wife, who died nine years ago. Compassion for his son, who is here today, and has a great future ahead of him. And compassion for his comrades, who never, not once in his illustrious long career, did he let die meaninglessly. He was a member of the oldguard, the strongest generation that won the Second War, his comrades he battled alongside of - The Legendary Sannin, Kato Dan, Aburame Shikuro, Uchiha Yashiro, the list goes on. Every generation has names the light up, that will be recognized for years to come. His, we can say, was the brightest. Hatake Sakumo. The White Fang. Feared and respected all throughout the shinobi world, in each of the five great nations. Um - thank you."

And it ends. Suddenly. In a moment, amidst the falling of rain. The young shinobi lingers on the podium a bit longer, fumbling with his hands, looking sheepish. A small chorus of applause. A whistle blown somewhere. The rain picks up, howls - and the funeral ends.


	11. Two Black Crows

From the his outstretched fore-finger, dot of shiny red blood, the crow flies away. All black and flight, made of feathers, like a small flying poem. It disappears into the leafy head of an ash tree. Nothing is disturbed, the branches don't give up it's location. The conspiracy of nature, of living things, of the non-humans.

"There. Now you have a summoning contract," the older boy says, grinning through his teeth. Running his right hand through his mess of black curly hair. He is made of light, probably. Warm unfiltered light.

Itachi doesn't respond. It is Sunday, late afternoon. A dry, hungry sunlight chews up the grass, turning the fields bitter and brown. They are leaning on a fence, the plywood warbled from old rains, splitting down their middles. There are sounds; wind, leaves and branches; someone faraway splitting logs with an axe - thunk… thunk… thunk… like a metronome of timber. The fields roll on for miles, like flattened hills, cut into sections by long ambling fences, cornstalks, and farmhouses, silos with their winking metal caps. The air is dry and sweet-tasting, but feels like sandpaper against his exposed skin, his forearms and backs of his hands, his cheeks, forehead, chin, eyelids, and his knees, shins. He is wearing black shorts, with his shuriken pack tied to his left thigh, a black t-shirt with a mesh tank underneath, and his dark blue military sandals. His hair is feather-like, tied in a spike of a ponytail. Even though he is seven, the lines on his face, connecting his eyes to his mouth, indicated age, experience, a polluted childhood. A boy born into war, into the tumult, the wisdom, the catharsis of war. All those blackened. burnt bodies - enemies of his father… He was only five, four when it happened.

"Next week," the older boy says, snapping Itachi's thoughts like twine, "I'll teach you how to use them to make a clone of yourself. Then, nobody can touch you!"

"Thanks," Itachi says, mutters. He is tall for his age, lithe, possessing a muscular wit. Trained, weaponized. His eyes murmur, burn. They want to change, again. Into that red-black thing, that pinwheel thing, that thing where everyone, his family, become just clouds of heat, and their movements slow, and he remembers everything he sees. It's a painful ordeal, when it happens. He's learned to meditate, to soothe himself near bodies of water, lakes, rivers, streams, even wells.

"Are you going to join them, the ANBU," Itachi asks, something young in his tone, like he is a little brother. The older boy waits a moment, observing him, his big pool-ball eyes, like eight-balls, churning with thought.

"I don't know," he finally admits, exhaling. Itachi nods slowly, relief, confusion. They are quiet together, for a moment, then another moment, as the wind blows up-field, slashing the branches of trees like something furious and violent.

"I don't want you to die," Itachi says, his voice cracking, somewhere in the back, somewhere in the middle of his voice, like glass. The older boy becomes rigid, his limbs like branches, his spine like a fence.

"I won't. I promise I won't. I'll never do that."

Itachi just smiles a sad thin crease of a smile. When they get home, his family - mother, father, little brother - is already eating supper: smoked quail eggs, dusted with paprika and salt, a motley of diced fried vegetables, chives, carrot cuts, parsley shreds, onions, peppers red and yellow, with a separate bowl of white rice, goat's butter, soy sauce. His mother's cooking, a mixture of the traditional and the strange. He and his family, they eat together, listening to the youngest relate the events of his day; playing in the park with his cousins, practicing shuriken with mom, finding and catching grasshoppers in the backyard - all the while, father chews, swallows, sips water, with a studiousness, a stoic apprehension, as if he constantly engages in an act of toleration. When the weight becomes too much to bear, Itachi interrupts, speaks, announces.

"As soon as they let me, I'm going to try for it. The ANBU."

His parents don't betray their expressions, their non-committal tendencies. His brother looks almost betrayed, but excited, but apprehensive, but frightened, but awed, but confused, but bored. When nobody responds, when nothing is said, they all return to eating, chewing, swallowing, sipping water and tea.

"Good," His father intones, when the dinner is gone, when the plates are cleared, when the other half of the family is in the other room playing a card game, "Good," he repeats, meaning it, his cruel-coal black eyes shimmering with something, the frown of his mouth tightening into something almost like a smile. Itachi bows, leaves the room. In the morning, he goes back to the field, bites his thumb hard enough to make it bleed, and practices alone. Making them appear, the crows, in clouds of dust-smoke, and then watching them fly away, into trees, onto fences, into the bright blue sky. It is Monday, early morning.


End file.
